Page 35 of The Pretty Savage

The little girl still hiding somewhere inside of me, the damaged child that lost too much and had never found out what love truly was, wanted to have someone she could call her own.

She wanted a home.

As I looked at Yolanda, with the defiant expression on her face while her arms were crossed over her chest, I knew she would've been better off without me in her life. It seemed she had enough shit even without me adding all my secrets and all my fuckups, but I desperately wanted a friend, no matter how pathetic that sounded.

I had kept a tight hold on my emotions for so long, and my arrival to the Academy seemed to be fucking up all these walls I’d erected in order to protect myself from the outside world. I didn't need a shrink to understand I did that because I had abandonment issues, or because I feared that the moment I let someone in they would take advantage of me and fuck me over, leaving me in a pile of ashes of what used to be my heart.

"Vega?" Yolanda's soft voice trickled through the shards of my mind, pulling me back to reality. "You seem, uh, lost? Are you really okay?" She took a hold of my hand. "I mean, I know you're banged up pretty badly, but it almost seems as if there's something else."

She wasn't probing, she didn't ask what that something else was, and I wished—God, how I wished—that I could tell her everything.

I wished I could tell her that I woke up in a cold sweat almost every single night, riddled by nightmares of a loveless and lifeless existence. I wished I could tell her the image I saw in the mirror every single day was the image of a monster, a shadow, because I didn't really know who I was anymore.

I had no idea what I liked and what I didn't like. I had no knowledge in my mind of the food I preferred and the sweets I craved.

The Schatten created me. They created a persona they deemed worthy for their missions, and I was too young to fight it, to try and build my own mind in a way where I'd be able to make my own choices. I hated that I still struggled with the fact that I had no orders and I was now trying to do what was best for me.

It took me months to speak up and tell Heinrich that I wanted to leave, and it only happened after one of our operatives came back in a body bag instead of on his own two feet.

But the worst part… The worst part was that it took me years to start thinking for myself, and once I did it was like emerging from muddy water, inhaling fresh air for the first time. But ever since that happened there seemed to be more issues in my mind than resolutions, and I had no idea which way to go.

I knew why I accepted this mission. I knew there would be no way for The Schatten to let me go if I tried to run. They would hunt me to the ends of the earth, making me pay for my disobedience, and who was to say they wouldn't bring me back and try to brainwash me once again to do their bidding?

I wouldn't know peace nor the life I wanted to have, so I accepted it. I stayed. I would do what they wanted me to do, but it took me only two days of being here to start rethinking this entire strategy.

The file Alena gave me had clear instructions on what I should do: collect information and neutralize the threat. But what if what I'd be doing was absolutely wrong? What if the Zylla family needed to be left alone and Adrian Zylla didn't deserve to die?

I hated the guy and his pompous act, but did he deserve to die because he tried to humiliate me in front of everyone else?

"You are completely zoned out, babe. It's fucking scary."

"Sorry," I mumbled, shaking my head. "I'm just thinking."

"Well, you're thinking really loudly."

I probably was, but I didn't know how to stop.

Should I stay here and do what was asked of me, and try to get revenge for Tyler, or should I collect my shit and disappear forever?

This constant anger, this constant pain, was fucking exhausting, and I didn't even realize how much until Adrian Zylla punched me in the face, sending me into oblivion and toward the dream of my mother.

I'd forgotten many things about her, or maybe I had blocked them out because it was easier thinking of her as a monster than as a human being that did everything to protect me, and it was obvious she was protecting me from something.

The dream I had last night hadn't happened before, and that man… I shuddered at the thought. That man obviously wanted me, mentioning my father, but every time I tried to think of the man who would be my father, my mother's words slid into my mind, reminding me that she said he was dead. But was he really?

This was exactly why I hated dreaming about her or remembering the things from those short years I spent with her, because they always brought more issues, and issues were exactly what I didn't need right now.

"Vega," Yolanda hissed. "If you don't get into the shower right now and lose that weird look on your face, I'm calling a doctor. I'm starting to think you have a concussion or something worse, because you keep getting this distant look in your eyes and I don't freaking like it."

She was right. "I'm fine. Don't worry." I smiled, almost immediately wincing when a sharp pain sliced through my lower lip. "Fuck."

"Fuck is the right word to use. You're bleeding—again."

"Did they mess up my lip as well?"

"Uh…" She fidgeted. "Yes?"

My eyes narrowed at her. "Why are you answering my question with a question?"

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